Levi Coffin House

Catharine and Levi Coffin, the home's original owners, along with the first of their six children migrated from Guilford County, North Carolina, to Wayne County, Indiana, to join other members of the Coffin family. The Coffins settled at Newport (the present-day town of Fountain City) in Wayne County in 1826 and established a home.[3][4]

Levi Coffin

Levi Coffin (1798–1877) was a Quaker abolitionist, businessman, and humanitarian who became an active leader in the Underground Railroad in Indiana and Ohio. Known for his leadership in aiding fugitive slaves, Coffin opposed slavery and was given the unofficial title of "President of the Underground Railroad."[5][6][7] Catharine (White) Coffin (1803–81) also took an active role in assisting fugitive slaves, which included providing food, clothing, and a safe haven in the Coffin home.[8][9]

Catharine White Coffin, 1879

The Coffins began sheltering fugitive slaves in Indiana during the winter of 1826–27, not long after their arrival at Newport. Their home became one of several Underground Railroad stops in a larger network of sites that provided aid to runaway slaves as they traveled north to freedom in Canada.[10] Underground Railroad conductors guided escaping slaves through Kentucky, where they typically crossed the Ohio River at one of three points: Madison, Indiana; Jeffersonville, Indiana; or Cincinnati, Ohio. After the crossing many of the escaping slaves were led to the Coffin House. The Coffins and their neighbors provided fugitive slaves with supplies and a place to stay until they could be transported further north. Coffin later estimated that, on average, they helped one hundred slaves escape each year.[11][12][13] Although the Coffins did not keep records of their activities because it was illegal to assist runaway slaves, it is believed that they helped as many as 2,000 of them to freedom in the North and in Canada during the twenty years (1826 to 1847) that they lived in Indiana.[13][14]

Harriet Beecher Stowe's fictional work, Uncle Tom's Cabin, told stories of slaves who escaped on the Underground Railroad. Stowe was living in Cincinnati at the time she wrote the novel and became acquainted with the Coffins, who may have been the inspiration for the fictional Quaker couple named Simeon and Rachael Halliday in her story. Stowe's book relates the tale of Eliza Harris, a slave girl from the South who escaped by crossing the frozen Ohio River with her baby on a winter night. After receiving food, clothing, new shoes, and shelter from the Hallidays, Harris continued her journey to freedom in Canada.[15][16]

At the urging of friends in the anti-slavery movement, the Coffins left Newport and moved to the Cincinnati, Ohio, area in 1847 to take over management of a store and wholesale warehouse that supplied free-labor goods produced without slave labor. Coffin sold the business in 1857, after determining that it would be impossible to sustain a profit, but the Coffins continued their role as local leaders in the Underground Railroad. It is estimated that they provided 1,300 fugitive slaves with a safe haven in their Ohio home. Coffin later became an agent for the Western Freedman's Aid Society, petitioned the U.S. government to create the Freedmen's Bureau, and in 1867 served as a delegate to the International Anti-Slavery Conference in Paris before retiring from public life.[6][17]

The Coffin family's residence that later became a state historic site was originally built circa 1838–39. Its location at the point where three of the escape routes to the North converged, along with the number of fugitive slaves who passed through the home, caused it to become known as the "Grand Central Station" of the Underground Railroad.[18][19] Because Coffin would demand to see a search warrant and slave-ownership papers for suspected runaway slaves before allowing entry, the house was never searched. By the time the slave-catchers returned from the county seat of Centerville (a round trip of 26 miles (42 km) to acquire the documents), the fugitive slaves would have been transported to other locations.[13][20] The Coffin home in Indiana continued to operate as a stopover for the Underground Railroad after the Coffins moved to Ohio in 1847.[21]

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the home was used as a hotel. After 1911 it was converted to apartments and passed through several owners before it was restored in the 1960s. Fortunately, the property was kept in good condition, including preservation of some of its original windowpanes and woodwork.[18]

The Coffin house was named a National Historic Landmark and in 1966 it became the first property in the state to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. Indiana's state government acquired the house in 1967 and leased it to the Wayne County Historical Society. The home has been restored to appear as it did in the 1840s when the Coffins lived there.[22][23][24] The restoration was done by Himelick Construction of Fountain City. After its restoration the home opened to the public as a historic site in 1970.[25]

The Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites operates the historic house. The historic site is open to the public for tours from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.[26]